Did dental examiner create the bite marks that put a man on death row?
In November 2007, Reason magazine's Radley Balko published a long investigative story on Steven Hayne, a doctor who for the last 20 years has done the vast majority of Mississippi's forensic autopsies. Critics say Hayne and his sidekick, "bite mark expert" Michael West, cornered the market by doing ungodly numbers of autopsies, and by telling prosecutors what they wanted to hear -- possibly putting innocent people in prison in the process.
Three months after the article ran, two men in Mississippi -- Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks -- were released from prison after DNA testing exonerated them for raping and killing the daughters of their girlfriends. Both convicted in the early 1990s, the two collectively served more than 30 years in prison. Tests pointed to a third man, who confessed to both crimes. Brooks and Brewer were both convicted based primarily on testimony from West and Hayne, who claimed to have found bite marks on the little girls that could only come from the accused.
Balko has now found another case from about the same time with remarkably similar facts. Only this time, there's an incredible, damning video of Hayne and West's "examination." Jimmie Duncan was accused of raping and killing his girlfriend's daughter, 23-month old Haley Oliveaux. Prosecutors brought her body to Hayne, who claimed to have seen bite marks no other doctor noticed. He then called in West, who did the exam depcited in the video. In the video, West takes a dental mold of Jimmie Duncan's teeth and pushes it into or scrapes it across Haley Oliveaux's body some 50 times.Other forensic experts say the video shows not only medical malpractice, but criminal evidence tampering.
West and Hayne have testified in thousands of cases in Mississippi and Louisiana. Jimmie Duncan was convicted of capital murder for the rape and murder of Haley Oliveaux. He is still on death row in Louisiana.
STRONG WARNING: The article contains extremely disturbing photos and a video excerpt of the "bite mark exam" on Haley Oliveaux. Article w/ video and photos | Original feature on Hayne | Archive of Blako's investigation of Hayne and West
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For so many reasons this is sickening. I hope it leads to justice in hundreds of cases tainted by this monster.
I am more than a bit bothered this has not triggered an investigation into the people hiring him as well.
Why would Hayne and West allow their evidence tampering to be recorded on videotape? Didn't they think anyone would see what they had done?
On a side note, I really believe a law is needed that requires a automatic re-examination of any thing a corrupt official or etc was involved in.
#4 We would be stuck in an ever tightening loop.
@#5
It would be annoying initially, but should begin having a affect eventually.
I got twenty bucks that says this guy doesn't do anywhere near the time that any one of his victims did.
Anyone?
Bueller?
Nanuq: uh, yeah. And where the hell has the video been sitting all of these years? Did no one review it? This seems to indicate some pretty extensive corruption.
boing boing "a directory of wonderful things" its way past time to change that headline.
Mark, thank you for the warning!
Reminded me of Dr. Charles Smith:
"For 24 years, Smith worked at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. In the hospital's pediatric forensic pathology unit, he conducted more than 1,000 child autopsies.
But Smith no longer practises pathology. An Ontario coroner's inquiry reviewed 45 child autopsies in which Smith had concluded the cause of death was either homicide or criminally suspicious.
The coroner's review found that Smith made questionable conclusions of foul play in 20 of the cases — 13 of which had resulted in criminal convictions. After the review's findings were made public in April 2007, Ontario's government ordered a public inquiry into the doctor's practices."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/crime/smith-charles.html
someofmyorange, truth and justice is wonderful. K? Tee hee.
Stop me if I'm making an unreasonable inference, but I think there's a working assumption in the world of law enforcement / prosecution that if a suspect is arrested, they're guilty... that when the cops get their man, they get the right one, and that the whole trial process is just a farce where criminals can get away with their crimes on bullshit technicalities. If there's no evidence, that just means that the criminal was smart or lucky... and if you have to fabricate some to make sure that justice is served, then so be it.
Us vs. Them, in other words.
Here we have a supposed expert irrefutably complicit in this. Here's hoping he spends the rest of his life in prison. Not two years, not ten... we're talking about ruining innocent peoples' lives here. But I wouldn't take the above poster's $20 bet.
Men like these make me hope I'm never accused of anything serious, because chances are good that I'll go to prison regardless of my guilt/innocence.
Ok, finally some hard news item we can sink our teeth into.
Thanks Boing-Boing!
Tampering with evidence or lying to an FBI agent is a felony.
I hope these creeps are reviewed and reviled for those innocently condemned by the courts.
A perfect example of why we need a serious review of the judicial and penal systems in the USA.
Just a thought (not a signature).
OK, who out there still supports the death penalty? I've got a "justice" system that I want you to try reconciling your beliefs with.
One would like to ask "What is it with these Dr. Wests?" but Herbert was just a med student.
a week in general population with some of the guys these two people help put away with their lies would, in essence, be the same as a life sentence.
The death penalty, who needs that sort of blood on your hands.
Society is about supporting,,,well, the more fucked up individuals.
Killers: Give'em a bed and a few books...we'll call it even. No real Life...just maintained.
Then we wait....
JG
Trying NOT to kill anyone
@11 Joeposts
Surely though there is a difference between having opinions which are later found to be erroneous as in Charles Smith case and deliberately setting out to falsify evidence as in Hayne & West case? The latter is surely far more culpable.
My own specific and unsubstantiated phobia is that I'll be arrested for a murder I didn't commit and be sent to prison.
I shy away from law enforcement and avoid cop cars like the plague, not because I'm not an upstanding citizen, but because of my fear.
And of course every time I tell myself how silly I'm being, I read about something like this!
In my opinion, if he's found guilty, every single one of those thousands of trials he testified at is tainted and should be thrown out. If only as a deterrent to any law enforcement who want to overstep the law for a conviction.
And if anyone wants to post how crazy I am and draconian my suggestion is, all I have to say is that I'm aware of it.
@5 We could clear up the court system enough to do it if we made pot legal
As sickening as the video is, I thank the Unspecified Abstract Principle which I will allow the potential existence thereof that this video even exists. In other news, Damian Echols is still on death row in Arkansas.
frankly, no deceitful or petty act committed by a human surprises me much these days.
Contact Haley Barbour
Governor of the State of Mississippi
Phone 1-877-405-0733 or 601-359-3150,
or by mail at: P.O. Box 139, Jackson, Mississippi 39205.
@1 No such luck yet.
The Reason report on this goes on to state that
"despite the Brooks and Brewer exonerations, the state has refused to conduct a review of the hundreds of cases in which West has testified."
And "Mississippi officials still refuse to acknowledge that there was ever a significant problem with Hayne, and have no intention of investigating just how much damage he may have done to the state's criminal justice system. ... Even in terminating Hayne, the state agreed to allow him to complete a backlog of approximately 600 autopsies. As of this article's posting, he's still testifying in Mississippi courts."
#9, "a directory of wonderful and things and disturbing news" perhaps.
OK, is it just me who finds it odd that someone would so carefully document the manufacturing of evidence? In closeups? So nicely framed and stably shot?
I have to wonder whether Reason and/or BoingBoing have been suckered by a viral marketing campaign for a movie or book or something of that sort. It'd be one hell of a way to create buzz...
Or if the incriminating part of the video is, in fact, itself manufactured evidence, given the cut.
I'm not interested enough to fact-check it. But I hope someone is doing so.
@ Aeon
"Surely though there is a difference between having opinions which are later found to be erroneous as in Charles Smith case and deliberately setting out to falsify evidence as in Hayne & West case? The latter is surely far more culpable."
I get the distinction, but Smith did suppress evidence that would have let innocent people walk. It wasn't like he was just making mistakes (which he was). It's the whole 'put 'em away' attitude that syncrotic describes. Scary.
This is why the death penalty is unconscionable - you can free a wronged man after 5, 10 or 15 years, but you cannot ressurect a dead person.
And I would not want to live in a state that so readily sanctioned murder when it knows it may be the wrong person. Well - even if they were 100%, it is still murder.
I highly doubt these guys will experience the level of "justice" many of their victims did, an utter shame, but no-one else here seems to think they'll get what they deserve.
The death penalty has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with justice.
Look at it from the state's point of view. You sometimes have to pay millions to a wrongfully convicted person, but only have to give a 'heartfelt apology' if it's proved a dead one was innocent.
That would be an interesting statistics problem. From a purely monetary outlook, considering wrongful convictions of n%, would life in prison be cheaper than the (surprisingly expensive) alternative?
I'm curious, did these guys happen to be black?
Many of my friends work for Legal Aid. They have made me terrified of the legal system here.
They routinely advise clients to plead cases because of the power asymmetry in the system.